News

Vermeulen Rejoins Sykes For Assen Weekend

April 20, 2010

WSBK, Assen, Netherlands, 20 April 2010The Kawasaki Racing team will have its regular line-up of Chris Vermeulen and Tom Sykes on board for the fourth round of the championship, at the iconic Assen circuit on April 25.

Sykes is currently 16th in the championship but ready to push on up the table at what is a recently modified Circuit van Drenthe, with the famous racetrack now measuring 4.542 km long, as opposed to its previous 4.555km.

Vermeulen has recovered well from recent keyhole surgery on his injured right knee, but is still working hard to get full bend and strength back before practice starts.

Chris has an enviable Superbike record at Assen, having taken three of his ten career victories at the Dutch circuit, before he started his MotoGP career. With a degree of Dutch family heritage Chris knows he will also be able to count on support from the enthusiastic local crowd at Assen once again.

Sykes was fourth and sixth at Assen in 2009, in his first SBK visit to the Netherlands, and the Englishman is out for two strong points scores again in 2010.

Tom Sykes: "Looking ahead to Assen I hope we can continue with the progress we have made over the past few races and put in solid on-track performances throughout the weekend. We worked hard on chassis issues at the previous round and finally it came together on Sunday morning, and we produced some good consistent lap times in the race. We are due some good fortune and with Chris coming back we hope that this race we'll be able to showcase the hard work that both myself and the team are putting in behind the scenes."

Chris Vermeulen: "My knee has been improving every day since I had keyhole surgery and I have a good feeling in most of its range. The difficult part now is getting enough bend in it, and also enough strength and stability in my knee to race at Assen. I want to be able to come back and ride at my normal level. I am getting physiotherapy every day and it is all starting to pay off. I am optimistic that it will have improved even more by race weekend. Assen has lots of flowing parts so you do get a little bit more time to move your body weight around. I really enjoy racing at Assen and have had successful results. I also seem to get a lot of very welcome support there because of my Dutch heritage."